what stories?

Joran asked a great question in his comment to me:

“So, what’s your story?”

What a loaded, loaded question.  I think my life could be current summed up in three stories:

1) I am a part of the redemptive history of mankind

My mind can’t settle for the simplistic story that we are just here by chance; that we really are just the most “advanced” life form on the planet (were that the case, then we’re more of a virus to Earth than a positively contributing part of it).  To think we’re just a product of happenstance is too simple.

I can’t accept a world where there is so much beauty just by accident.  Songs and poems and paintings instill too much emotion to be some kind of instictual response.  Prayer and conversation with other people brings too many thoughts to my brain for it to be “just” a communication tool no different than a dog’s whining or barking.  Pain is far too good of warning for things far more important than just the physical.

So a part of my story is my belief that humanity is here for a purpose and that we are here to live.  I believe we’ve been gifted with an oppertunity to love each other.  That we were created to interact, to play together, to hurt one another.  And that, perhaps, that Creator wouldn’t mind a bit of our attention now and then.

A part of my story is to tell that story; to give people hope that there is a sane person out there wo still believes in more than just atoms and molecules.  That spirits and souls, that blood and love still have a place in this world.  And that yes, that Creator wants us to enjoy His other creations.

2) Love is a choice; and is always the right choice

I’ve been married for just over a year now.  Marriage brings with it a huge number of suprises and changes that one never guesses.  So many of those suprises are so good; so few are painful and damaging.  Unfortunately, in today’s world we’re told to focus on those few hard things and someone else will say you shouldn’t have to deal with that painful thing.

And so, this love you chose to give no longer becomes about choosing to love another creation, but instead the relationship becomes about the pain and discomfort.  And love becomes less a choice and more a waning emotion.

I believe love is a choice, and the right choice everytime.  I believe love is something above simple emotions and evolution.  I believe that I want to love you and, deep down, you want to love me.

So my story is that love is good; that my wife and I love each other and choose to everyday.  We love each other through the few painful suprises and we love each other through the many smiles, laughs and kisses.  My story is one of love, of loving other creations, and letting them love me.

3)  Art is never done, time just ran out

My mother passed away in May of 2004.  She wasn’t done; she was a beautiful piece of art, but she wasn’t done.  Her time ran out, though.  She left behind love, beauty, and stories to tell my wife and children.

Through the end of her life, she clung to the hope of a Creator and that her life wasn’t done; just that her time here had run out.  She believed in a redemptive history; that even though she had done wrong in life, she was still beautiful.

My mother wasn’t done; I’ll never be done; no piece of art realy ever is.  But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good – no, it just means that things will get more beautiful.

 

So those are the three threads in my life right now.  So what are the stories I want to tell?  Well, I’ve written a couple of comic books that the art is being worked on (I’m no artist).  One set is about courage and realtionships, another book is about how death effects the people left behind more than the dying.  I’ve written some poems, made some videos, etc etc.

So yeah, I have stories to tell; some serious, some not so much.  But life, if nothing else, is at least a series of stories.  And I love hearing them as much as I love telling them.

createScale(args)

Here’s a little snippet of code I wrote tonight to be able to scale a sprite dependant upon how far down the triggers were pressed, borrowing heavily from the XNA documentation.  The “float elapsed” comes from “elapsed = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds;” being in the Update portion of the game class.  I’m not writing anything ground breaking here, but I hadn’t seen anyone scale a sprite off the triggers before, so I figured I’d throw it out there (though, to be sure, everyone who ever wrote a tutorial would know this off-hand.  I mean, I knew how to do it off hand, so I’ll assume you do too, dear reader.  Humor me.)

public void createScale(GraphicsDeviceManager graphics, Texture2D sprite, GamePadState state, float elapsed){

if (Scale * sprite.Width < graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width || Scale * closeRight.Height < graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height)

{

Scale += state.Triggers.Right * elapsed;

Scale = Scale % 6;

}

if (Scale > 0.001f)

{

Scale -= state.Triggers.Left * elapsed;

Scale = Scale % 6;

}

}

I Want to Tell Stories

Joran Omark is one of the leading people helping the XNA Community learn. He manages the xnatutorial.com site, a site that I used extensively during the first beta, helping me figure out how to put sprites on the screen.

One of his posts from his personal blog hits the nail on the head as to why I’m trying to learn XNA and programming for games:

“By next year, there will be an influx of total beginners, who will want to know how to tell their stories. I propose that the very best stories to come from those future beginners, will be the ones that thoroughly understand the storytelling tools they use. For this, they need help.”

So thanks to everyone involved in all these tutorials, they’re truly helpful. You’re setting the stage for us “young” storytellers.

XNA: For Beginners or No?

Dennis, the senior software engineer for Cecropia, makes any interesting analysis of the XNA tools on his blog.

My young programmer mind boils down his post to two things:

1)  He doesn’t like that XNA is a propritary API

2)  He doesn’t like that you have to pay to run the applications on a 360

I understand the concerns about XNA being proprietary.  Me learning XNA is not going to help me learn a whole lot about C++ in order to later code for Nintendo’s systems.  However, me learning XNA is, in fact, helping me learn C# and, to an extent, JAVA.  Giving a geek the opportunity to code for a gaming system, no matter which one, is motivation enough to learn.

It works! XNA on the 360

Aaron on the XBOX 360

Originally uploaded by aaronlinne.

That’s right.

XNA was launched today (msdn.com/xna). I haven’t touched the XNA tools since September, before the second beta went out. I saw all the problems people were having with the transition from alpha to beta, so I didn’t want to get stuck.

Well let me say that XNA rocks.

In about 2 hours I was able to write the neccessary code to place my head on the screen, move it around and, of course, make its mouth open and close. It’s all the first steps of my first real game.

Amidst all the questions of work, career and studies, it was a simply awesome experience to site down for a couple of hours and see something through. And as cool as writing programs on a PC is, there is a huge amount of joy in writing something to run on a video game system.

When I was a young child, my dad tried to learn BASIC in order to make a game for the IntelliVision. He told me once that he was going to make a game for me and my sister. Unfortunately, he never quite got around to it.

But here I am, 20-some years later, and I have the beginning workings of a game. I can wait to see what comes out of XNA not just from myself, but from the whole XNA Community.

Java Path

c:/program files/java

sigh – why must i make the simple things so complicated…

on the good news, during lunch today i was able to connect to the mysql server via code and do a system.out.println of the attributes within… go me!

Barrier to Entry (Programming Annoyance #1)

The problem with learning to program isn’t that the actual programming is hard.  That part’s easy; logical and abstract.  As you code more, you learn new tricks and new vocabulary.

The problem is the barrier to entry.  It’s not just one thing you have to learn, it’s 25 different things.  You have to decide what language to focus in on, and what IDE to use.  You have to know EXACTLY where to place files, you have to know what services to download and install, and what plug-ins are worth your time.

I hear and read rumors of things like ANT and Hibernate… but I have no clue if I’ll ever get to them.  I’m still trying to learn how to get my system set up right.

This is one of the major differences between JAVA and C#.  Microsoft holds your hand almost too much, while JAVA is a wide desert, with each piece of sand representing some other source of information.  I applaud you Microsoft, for making such solid product that try their best to break down the barrier of entry.

Tonight, however, I was back in JAVA because, frankly, I know how to do a little more in it right now and have a simple project I want in usable form by Monday.  So I’m working away, getting my gui set up and a little ActionListener here and so on, when I get to the point where I need data.  A database.

 So here’s the first of non-coding language things I need to learn… how to set up the database.  Not to big of a problem, get it done (and done correctly).  Well, I want to hit the database with my app from across the series of tubes we call the Internet, so then I have to go set up a dynamic dns service.

So I get out the handy dandy MySQL Cookbook, and run some test code to make sure everythings working right… and it is on my Mac (where I have the database set up).  I head out to the living room to spend some time with my wife while testing my code on my PC laptop to make sure I can hit the database…. and no success.

 Now, I know everything is working correctly becuase I can use a MySQL Query browser to hit the database, so that’s fine.  So how in the world can code that worked on one computer in Eclipse NOT work in another computer in Eclipse.  I struggle with this idea for over and hour, trying so many changes to the code, when finally I realize the problem.

 I have to download the MySQL J/Connector and put it in my javapath.

So, now I’m left with the pressing quesiton before I get some sleep…

 How do I find the javapath on a Windows machine..?